Death and Afterlife in Modern France 1st Edition by Thomas Kselman 9781400862986 1400862981

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Product details:

ISBN 10: 1400862981

ISBN 13: 9781400862986

Author: Thomas A. Kselman

Although today in France church attendance is minimal, when death occurs many families still cling to religious rites. In exploring this common reaction to one of the most painful aspects of existence, Thomas Kselman turns to nineteenth-century French beliefs about death and the afterlife not only to show how deeply rooted the cult of the dead is in one Western society, but how death and the behavior of mourners have been politicized in the modern world. Drawing on sermons preached in rural and urban parishes, folktales, and accounts of seances, the author vividly re-creates the social and cultural context in which most French people responded to death and dealt with anxieties about the self and its survival. Inspired mainly by Catholicism, beliefs about death provided a social basis for moral order throughout the nineteenth century and were vulnerable to manipulation by public officials and clergy. Kselman shows, however, that by mid-century the increase in urbanization, capitalism, family privacy, and expressed religious differences generated diverse attitudes toward death, causing funerals to evolve from Catholic neighborhood rituals into personalized symbolic events for Catholics and dissenters alike–the civil burial of Victor Hugo being perhaps the greatest symbol of rebellion. Kselman’s discussion of the growth of commercial funerals and innovations in cemetery administration illuminates a new struggle for control over funeral arrangements, this time involving businessmen, politicians, families, and clergy. This struggle in turn demonstrates the importance of these events for defining social identity. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of contents:

Part One: Mortality and Mortal Knowledge

1. Progress and Anxiety in French Demography

Part Two: Folk, Orthodox, and Alternative Cultures
2. Folk Religion: Tales of the Dead
3. Catholicism and the Cult of the Dead
4. Alternative Afterlives in the Nineteenth Century

Part Three: The Material Culture of Death
5. From Churchyard to Cemetery
6. The Origins of Commercial Funerals
7. The Diffusion and Reform of Pompes Funèbres

Epilogue
8. Courbet’s Burial at Ornans and the Cult of the Dead

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Tags: Thomas Kselman, Death, Afterlife, Modern